BUILDING UP A LAYING STRAIN 



109 



Careful breeding, selection and feeding have made 

 wonderful changes in our animal life. Nearly all 

 our domestic animals and birds are descendants of 

 a wild prototype — the horse from the wild horse of 

 Central Asia, the dog from wolves and jackals, the 

 many species of pigeons from the wild Blue Rock 

 Pigeon, which abounds in Northern and Eastern 

 Madeira, Canary Islands, India and Japan. 



What is true of other animal life is also true of 

 poultry. Our present day busy hen came from the 

 wild jungle fowl of Northern India. The Callus 

 Bankiva, as this wild fowl is called, very closely re- 

 sembles the Black-breasted Indian Game, smaller in 

 size, and tail carried more erectly. It has required 

 centuries of evolution to produce the many varied 

 colored and shaped specimens of today. Even this 

 remarkable transformation of plumage and form is 

 nothing in comparison to the vast improvement in 

 egg production. The wild jungle fowl lays from six 

 to ten eggs a year, while there are domestic fowls 

 today which lay from 265 to 300 eggs a year. All 

 of this has been brought about by careful selection, 

 breeding and feeding. 



There is a big variation today in the productive- 

 ness of our hens, and the 200 eggs a year hen is still 

 in the minority, in fact the vast majority of hens lay 

 far below this figure, and some of our neglected 

 farm flocks average less than a hundred per hen. 



